I had a sinking feeling when I saw The Product Engineer opened with, “You don’t need Product Managers.”
But then the post ended with bullets about a Product Engineer, and it describes what I’ve been doing for the last decade:
As a starting framework, a Product Engineer:
- Has a deep knowledge of how the product is built. If the product is not yet built, they can scribble how it should work on a whiteboard.
- Able to explain to anyone with the motivation to understand how each product feature works. They are likely more knowledgeable regarding certain feature sets in larger products, but their understanding of the complete product is vast.
- Actively use the product and report bugs when they happen upon them.
…
A Product Engineer:
- Uses the product every day and reports bugs aggressively when they find them.
- Intimately knows how the products work and can explain any feature or inner workings to anyone. When they find a gap in their knowledge, they fill it.
- Have a deep understanding of how users perceive their features and how their changes would affect their perception. They can wear the customer mindset.
- Remember the debates around the most complex decisions and why we chose this path.
- Have living breathing code in the product — right now.
- Can effectively argue with anyone on the team regarding the product. Will defer to their team members when the argument is sound, but they will continue to argue until there is product clarity.
- Communicates well in every direction because they’ve developed professional relationships in all those directions.
- Are aggressively curious and willing to learn anything relevant to the design and development of the product, especially when it’s outside of their area of expertise.
So, if you wondered what I do– that’s it, exactly.